Articles by Scott Krane
Shai Maestro: Human, All Too Human
by Scott Krane
ECM recording artist and erstwhile pianist for bassist, Avishai Cohen, Shai Maestro is both a firebrand and a lightning rod. Human, his sixth record as leader and second for ECM, features Jorge Roeder on bass, Ofri Nehemya on drums, and, making his debut in Maestro's combo, Philip Dizack on trumpet. Creamy and richly layered, Human flirts with free-time and soulful, yet dynamic, piano expression. The man of the hour showed up for the virtual interview wearing a grey ...
Continue ReadingCameron Graves: Inventing Thrash-Jazz
by Scott Krane
Pianist and composer, Cameron Graves, arrived on the scene in his late teens and early twenties, possessing a proclivity for classical music, an unquenchable passion for heavy metal, and a jazz sensibility and lexicon of musicality. According to the website of Mack Avenue Records, the label that signed Graves and put out his debut solo release, 2017's Planetary Prince, Graves tags his sound as “thrash-jazz," especially the music heard on his follow-up release for Mack Avenue Records, Seven, released earlier ...
Continue ReadingTali Rubinstein: Plastic Art
by Scott Krane
Recorder player, Tali Rubinstein, studied early music from the Baroque and Renaissance periods for many years, mostly as a teenager. The Israeli-American virtuoso learned under Bracha Kol, a recorder player and operatic vocalist based in Israel. If asked back then whether she was interested in playing jazz, Rubinstein would have looked at you with some interest but not-yet-formed dedication. Fate had another way. “When I was 20, I went to study classical music and math at Tel Aviv ...
Continue ReadingBarak Weiss: The Inaugural Polish JazzFest in Tel Aviv
by Scott Krane
Jerusalem-based attorney, Barak Weiss, is the Artistic Director of the annual Tel Aviv Jazz Festival which takes places at the Tel Aviv Cinemateque in the center of the city. This year, he helped to spearhead a new project: The Polish Jazz Festival in Tel Aviv which runs from August 27 through September 20, 2020. Weiss, who I've had the honor to interview, worked in concert on this exciting new project with Raz Sekeles and Yair Spiegel. All About ...
Continue ReadingYe Olde Criticism of Jazz
by Scott Krane
SURREALISM, n. Psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express--verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other manner--the actual functioning of thought. Dictated by the thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern. ENCYCLOPEDIA. Philosophy. Surrealism is based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of previously neglected associations, in the omnipotence of dream, in the disinterested play of ...
Continue ReadingSubCulture, Grand Opening: Gregg Kallor, Gregory Porter, David Murray Infinity Quartet ft. Macy Gray
by Scott Krane
The art of recording has changed music, more so in the information age. Nevertheless, it seems consensus in New York: jazz sounds better live. SubCulture is a new performance space in the district of Manhattan that is called 'NoHo.' The building is located at 45 Bleecker Street right in front of a stop for the B, D, F, M and 6 trains. The recommended drink as per space owner, Marc Kaplan is the Liberty School cabernet and a semi-local brew, ...
Continue ReadingUsing The Jazz Trope For Assimilation
by Scott Krane
I read an interesting thing in the Harvard Gazette today. Hansung Ryu a cellist from Seoul who played a summer concert at Harvard said “If Harvard were an Aaron Copland song, it would be 'Hoe-Down'— difficult to play but very colorful and exciting." Ryu played selections from “Rodeo" at Harvard's Sanders Theater on August, 3. The Gazette quoted the cellist saying, “Whenever I play Copland, it makes me feel the way I do about America." Jazz is both ...
Continue ReadingTalking Jazz Guitar With Peter Bernstein and Jimmy Bruno
by Scott Krane
For many years Les Paul held a regular concert at the Iridium Jazz Club in Manhattan on Monday nights. After his death in 2009, others who are loosely considered to be in the same genre as Les Paul's jazz trio have performed the traditional gig at the Iridium. On Monday, July 8, on the eve of his day of birth, the Les Paul trio (Lou Pallo on solid-body electric guitar, Nicki Parrott on bass and John Colianni on ...
Continue ReadingYusef Lateef: Celebrating 75 Years of Music at Roulette in Brooklyn
by Scott Krane
Rarely in the history of contemporary American music has one artist iconized as many aspects of organized sound as Yusef Lateef who appeared in Brooklyn, New York on Saturday night, April 6, at the new Brooklyn version of the Manhattan performance space, Roulette, near the new Barclay's Arena. In a two-hour performance billed, “Yusef Lateef: Celebrating 75 years of music," the 92-year-old remnant of modern jazz displayed the breadth of his musical imagination in a four-part concert.The Grammy Award-winning ...
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